Arizona weekly citizen., 1887-12-10
CITY OF THE DEAD. Professor Cushing's Lecture on the
 Ancient Zuni. Discoveries In the Arizona Desert-A Great City of the Past Connected With
 the Present Zuni

A special meeting of the California
 Academy of Sciences was held last even
 nIng. The auditorium was we'll filled
 with invited guests, who enjoyed the
 lecture of Professor Frank Hamilton Cushing, on the discovery of the ruined
 city of Los Muertos. in Arizona. Du.
 ring the lecture the Professor held his
 hearers attention, and his limitations of
 the Zuni songs and lullaby were highly
 appreciated and won well merited sp-
 plsuse, He wac, unfortunately, in deli
 cate health, the result of bis ten years
 life in and smong the Zuni Indians, and
 his researches on the Arizona deserts.
 Though really unable to appear last
 night, he persisted in delivering bis
 discourse, as, in his own words, he
 never breaks an engagement" In the
 middle of his discourse he tainted away,
 but after some time continued the leo ture.
 The topic of his address was a sequel to his lecture of two or three weeks ago. On this occasion it was e sketch of she circumstances of his investig siions in the Salt River Valley in Arisons.
 My youthful days ID New York;" he sad. "were spent in looking for remains of the Iroquois Indians, and my early opinions were sorreci, ss subsequent events showed me they were synony nous to the ethnologicsl investigations of scientists. This led me to follow up my studies. In field which had been ploved sixty or eighty years ago in New York, one can see the traces of ancient encsmpments. I learned to see them there, and it wss the same knovledSe which enabled me Co discover the ancient city of the dead in Arizona. In these researches I was assisted by the hber- sllty of Mrs. Hemenwsy and the Bureau Rthnology, of Boston.
 En route from PheniI, Arizona, to the Salt River Valley, discovered @ series of mounds, not very marked, but still evidently artificial began to hunt around on the surface and saw on the ground all the signs of SD early In dian village. There were traces of pot tery, stone implements and domestic utensils. On discovering these signs, my men came upon jars. sauoer-like bowls, and traces of houses, about three 10 five feet from the ground. We found the foundations of an ancient city of great magnitude. The architecture may be called terra ootts, not adobe. The walls were moulded, and in some places blocks have rounded corners. The blocks must have been made by in struments and pressed into shape.
 "One of the blocks of that city-No. on our msp-is nearly ss large ss the whole town which is the present Zuni capital We msy safely say the ancient city was more than twenty times as large Rs the modern town of Zuni, which conteins ls,0O0 souls. Judge, then, what the population of Los Muer- tos wss eleven oentuFies sgn.
 "rhe great buildings of l06 rooms are situated in blocks, and each block was by a wall of great sohdity. The streets run about 15 deg. out of the true north line. This city was over whelmed by a succession of earthquakes. The fires on the hearth set ire so the roofs, SO that in digging up the remains of these rooms VIC found the rstters laid out in stresks of charcoal So sudden was the catastrophe that people had not time 10 carry svsy anything, and this accounts for the discovery of so many ancient jars and tools, etc. In other places they found articles that re- mained in meeting-hslls of the ancient tribes, well preserved.
 "Within the Ihouses were graves of terra cot a or adobe, snd inside were skeletons with the heads almost always pointing eest. The skeletons vera sur rounded with psrsphernslis according b thsiy rank. Outside the houses were containing cremated human remains tn many-shsped urns.
 -Hk Ao wo.aola d Ia,ar- sied in three or four colors, but in every | case you will find an accidental break in the band of decoration around the jars. This arose from the expectations of the Zuni, who thought vessels had life, as it had been observed among them that when a vessel broke it gave loud twang. Banding i, all around would not allow the echo of the canyons or it's life to come out. IL is exactly SO with the Zuni of to-day, and in their pottery IS exactly the same characteristic of their sncient ancestors.
 "The Zuni actually believed their ves- sells had 6 soul, and put 8 small hole the urns SO that they would be dead as we'll ss the cremsted remains within.
 "I found preserved In a grotto, ancient plumes identical to those in use among the present tribes. The Zuni ritual has been religiously transferred through and some of the words are now obsolete.
 These people had s wonderful system of canals, and our ren have uncovered about three miles of large walls"
 He concluded by sin ging the ''msiden's song" and lullaby. The music has 6 beautiful rhythm and wonderfully pleasing construction for bsrbsric race. Professor Carlos Troyer has adapted the lullaby" and other pieces to music for Professor Cushing's report to Wash InRton. Boston and Eastern professors failed to copstrue the harmony and time, but in this case it IS being handled by . man who has made study of the mel odies of South and North American h. disns, and with success.
 The lecture will be repeated tomorrow night st the Berkeley UnivsS sity, but in a more technical form